The rule is simple: chilled food must go from the delivery van to below 8 °C (ideally 5 °C) within 20 minutes of arrival. Most cafés break it every single day.

Driver rings the bell → you’re serving customers → boxes sit on the floor for 25–40 minutes “until it quietens down”. By then the yoghurt, cheese, and deli meats have already started climbing.

Result: either you use unsafe stock and risk illness, or you throw it away and lose £60–£490 per delivery.

The fix: one person stops everything for 90 seconds, checks and logs temperatures, moves straight to the fridge. Ninety seconds of slight inconvenience saves hundreds of pounds a week.